Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - As Southern California homeowners deal with wildfires that have destroyed homes and other belongings, could their insurance companies considering holding out on paying their claims?
One insurance agent says it's all about what's in the insurance policy.
Ray Caputo of Wolf Insurance Agency says people admittedly don't like to read their insurance policies.
"I don't blame them. They cover what they cover, but they exclude very seriously things that they don't want to pay for," said Caputo in an interview with WBEN.
In places where a typical thing like a hurricane or wildfire happens on a fairly, if not regular basis, insurance companies just don't want to get involved with it.
"We're finding in our business that a lot of companies are just kind of like drawing the lines, like we don't want to do this, or we don't want to do that. And then you say, 'Well, how are you going to make premium? How do you make money if you don't charge premium and write the business?' That's something the insurance companies have to deal with," Caputo said.
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As serious as things are out West, Western New York has not seen such a situation.
"We had our snow storms, and we've had our lake effect stuff and so forth. But after several days, if it's a winter time, the messages are don't park here and don't park there and but life goes on," Caputo said.
He doesn't anticipate insurance premium matters from California to trickle to Western New York.